...creepy and uncanny. Seeing that game's design pretty much seems to drive home the point of that 1Up article about what's wrong with the J-market currently.

Not at all, in fact if anything this is an exception to what I think many people find irritating about the entire concept of moe. My own problem with moe is that there's an uncomfortable sexualization aspect where it isn't wanted or even really appropriate. This game just looks like it's trying to make all the characters look like plushies/teddy bear things, which is actually...well, cute.

Huh, maybe just me then. I was almost certain that dollification qualified up there with "diapering" as one of those weird moe aspect that's been floating around the convention art circuit lately. Regardless I still stand by my opinion that those are some damn creepy faces. ~.~

They basically have faces like Eastern emoticons. It's more or less like putting a simplistic smiley face on a recognized character design in order to make it look more juvenile/cute. It's also popular in mascots at times- see things like Qoo.

I'm not the kind of person that sees these things and flips out over how adorable they are, but I'm not such a hardass that I have to act irritated at the creation of anything that's meant to be puppy dog cute. It's the uncomfortable unison of childish cuteness and sexual overtones that makes moe annoying to me, and what I think tends to irritate lots of other people. I'm under the impression when people make fun of stuff that's purely meant to be cute it's done with a note of sarcasm, like making fun of Teletubbies or something.

For a moment there I actually thought it might be an interesting twist to a battle system, then I realised that the game is probably just a bunch of random scenes with a rhythm game slapped on top. Also, that chime sound every time you hit the mark is terribly annoying.